How the Axe Falls

Chapter 6

The kill that never was. 

His kill. 

Snatched away from him after all that planning.

All that rage he'd bottled up, saving for this very moment, and all he had to show for it was a very dead corpse.

A dull ache snuck behind Talon's eyes as he stared down at the Viscount's limp body.

The stopper was close to popping loose – that dull ache was beginning to burn.

Talon screamed, not caring for the noise he made as his fists rained down upon Du Puis's body.

Blood, some of it his own, streamed past Talon's cracked knuckles in rivulets once he was finished. His chest heaved up and down from the exertion but he didn't feel any less angry. He needed something, someone new to kill, and he'd start with whoever had stolen his revenge.

There was a crash and Talon whipped round to find a small weasel of a man trembling over a cracked pile of crockery.

'M-Murderer...' he whimpered. 'MURDERER!' he cried, lunging towards Talon.

They struggled against each other, rolling over the carpet and smacking into furniture.

Then the man was atop him, straddling his waist whilst he attempted to choke the life out of Talon.

'MURDERER!' he screamed in Talon's face, half weeping, half snarling in a most ugly fashion.

On the weasel's side, he was a grown man, albeit a pathetic excuse for one at that. Talon, however, smaller he was, had years of working the pastures with his Uncle.

He smacked the weasel in the jaw with his fist, his greased back hair jolted at that but the man now had a hand firmly clamped against his throat.

Talon caught the man again and he toppled over to the side clutching a bleeding nose.

Rubbing his throat, Talon picked himself up the floor and ran to the stairs, not making it halfway down before the weasel tackled him from behind.

They fell away from each other after the last step, panting underneath the chandelier.

Shaking as he did, Talon pushed himself onto his knees.

The weasel was already on his feet and he had wicked grin plastered over his face.

Talon glanced down at the handle of his Uncle's hiding knife, the one now stuck in his side.

Oh, he thought. He hadn't even felt it go in.

Smug-like, the weasel began to advance toward him. 

The shadows swallowed the man before he could reach Talon.

Dark fingers closed around the man's neck and face and twisted. The weasel's neck had snapped with as much noise as leaves crunching underfoot.

Shrugging off the shadows, an olive-skinned woman garbed in a grey cloak stepped over the limp sack of bones and flesh now lying before her. She had a head over Talon but she couldn't have had more than three or four years on him.

The most beautiful green eyes Talon had ever seen swept over his half-cloak, brow raising half a degree as she did, then flickered to the knife jutting out underneath.

'I wouldn't do that if I were you,' she said warningly.

Talon withdrew his hand from the knife hilt, feeling his cheeks flush. 'M'lady,' Talon grunted, clutching his side. Whatever adrenaline had hidden his pain was beginning to wear off.